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Thursday, 25 October 2012

Complete in Him

I love doing jigsaw puzzles. I love the challenge of putting one of those big old 1000 piece puzzles together. Finding those edge pieces, getting my outside finished, and then filling in the middle. Turning those pieces around, puzzling over them, until they slot into the right place. Then, there is nothing quite like the satisfaction of finishing it - getting all the pieces fitting together in perfection.

Completed.

Every last piece where it belongs, so that it was one, big picture - it is a finished product that has an identity and you can see what the picture should be.

If there is one part missing, it is SO very frustrating, because you can't complete it. It's not perfect. It's not done.

It's incomplete.

Our life is a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle.

Some people think that having certain things will "complete" their life.

Have you ever heard people saying of their husband

"I feel complete with him"?

or

"He makes me complete"?

Often, when talking about relationships, people talk about finding a spouse who "completes" them.

The same can be said about having children. That they fill a space you had in your heart and life, and you feel a completion when you have them. Like your life was missing something that only having your children can fill.

There are many other things that can be the same.

A nice home.

Some kind of pursuit or hobby.

A job.

Anything.

There are so many things that people think they need in order to be complete.

But these things are only like the main part of the jigsaw. You build them all up, fitting all the pieces together. I think the husband is a bit like the outside edge - it's important, but it doesn't "make" the picture. The children are like so many of the parts in the middle. They fill up what is missing, and start to make your life's picture something good to look at.

Don't think that my analogy is misplaced because of the size of the puzzle piece. We're not thinking size here. We're thinking of value. Something doesn't need to be big to be the most valuable thing that you possess. To the value of having a complete puzzle, you NEED the final piece. It's not a completed puzzle, it's just NEARLY a completed puzzle. And, that makes all the difference. Some people's puzzles may just be like a little child's two or three piece puzzle. It may not be a complicated, big puzzle. Just yourself, with no husband or children. Just a husband, and no children. Maybe it's not complicated, and intricate.

But, unless you have that final piece, the picture is still NOT complete. It's looking good, there's a picture to see, but it's not finished. It's not fully there. It's not complete.

The only way you can have a complete picture, is if you have the final piece.

That's the Lord.

We are only complete in HIM. We can search for satisfaction in so many other things in life. They may seem like big things, and they may even be important things. But, they are not what provides the completion in our lives.

Only Christ makes us complete.

I'm not suggesting that our husband, our children, our pursuits and all the other things in life are not good, right and important. God has told us in His word of the value of these things, and it was He that created them for our pleasure, enjoyment and humanity. But, we must never, NEVER get to the place where we think that they are what makes us complete. That we dwell so much upon them, and hold onto them so tightly, as to forget that we are only complete in Christ. That HE and He alone is what we need to hold onto, to dwell upon, to savour and seek for, in order to be complete.

Many, many people in life - Christians, not just the world - work so hard on things that they think to be important. Their family, their job, their home, their fitness, their hobbies. It can become so that it is the most important thing in their life, and the Lord gets pushed to the side. Other things crowd in, and to everyone around the picture looks pretty good. But, if you look at it through spiritual eyes, it's not complete. If Christ isn't there, and he is not the most important thing in our lives, we are not complete.

It is not right to get to the point that we think we cannot possibly function or manage without these other things in our life. If Christ completes us, then that means we have everything we need. He is the completion of every part of our life, and our needs are met entirely in Him, and Him alone.

Oh how my own soul is rebuked. So many things in life crowd in, and we can put our focus on them for our satisfaction. When, in fact, that satisfaction will never come unless we put all our focus on pleasing the Lord, and putting Him first. If it is Him that we are complete in, should we not want to relish that, and enjoy it? Should we not want to make that the most important pursuit in life - making Him our all and in all?

Let's lay out our lives before us, and make sure that we are putting Christ before all else.